Digital Commons Network^™

Plant Responses To Fertilization Experiments In Lowland, Species-Rich, Tropical Forests, S. Joseph Wright, Benjamin L. Turner, Joseph B. Yavitt, Kyle E. Harms, Michael Kaspari, Edmund V.J. Tanner, Jelena Bujan, Eric A. Griffin, Jordan R. Mayor, Sarah C. Pasquini, Merlin Sheldrake, Milton N. Garcia

Faculty Publications

© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America We present a meta-analysis of plant responses to fertilization experiments conducted in lowland, species-rich, tropical forests. We also update a key result and present the first species-level analyses of tree growth rates for a 15-yr factorial nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) experiment conducted in central Panama. The update concerns community-level tree growth rates, which responded significantly to the addition of N and K together after 10 yr of fertilization but not after 15 yr. Our experimental soils are infertile for the region, and species whose regional distributions are strongly associated …

Climate Change And An Invasive, Tropical Milkweed: An Ecological Trap For Monarch Butterflies, Matthew J. Faldyn, Mark D. Hunter, Bret D. Elderd

Faculty Publications

© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America While it is well established that climate change affects species distributions and abundances, the impacts of climate change on species interactions has not been extensively studied. This is particularly important for specialists whose interactions are tightly linked, such as between the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and the plant genus Asclepias, on which it depends. We used open-top chambers (OTCs) to increase temperatures in experimental plots and placed either nonnative Asclepias curassavica or native A. incarnata in each plot along with monarch larvae. We found, under current climatic conditions, adult monarchs had higher …

Heat And Mass Transfer In A Cylindrical Heat Pipe With A Circular-Capillary Wick Under Small Imposed Temperature Differences, Pramesh Regmi, Harris Wong

Faculty Publications

Heat pipes are efficient in transferring heat and have been applied in various thermal systems. Previous models of heat pipes use the heat rate through the pipe as an input parameter, and therefore lack predictive capabilities. Here, we demonstrate, using a simple heat pipe, that if the evaporation and condensing kinetics are properly modeled, then the heat rate is predicted. We consider a cylindrical heat pipe with the inner wall lined with a circular-capillary wick. The capillaries are filled with a partially wetting liquid, and the center of the pipe is filled with its vapor. Initially, the heat pipe is …

Space-Efficient Indexes For Forbidden Extension Queries, Sudip Biswas, Arnab Ganguly, Rahul Shah, Sharma V. Thankachan

Faculty Publications

Document listing is a fundamental problem in information retrieval. The objective is to retrieve all documents from a document collection that are relevant to an input pattern. Several variations of this problem such as ranked document retrieval, document listing with two patterns and forbidden patterns have been studied. We introduce the problem of document retrieval with forbidden extension. Let D={T1,T2,…,TD} be a collection of D string documents of n characters in total, and P+ and P− be two query patterns, where P+ is a proper prefix of P−. We call P− as the forbidden extension of the included pattern P+. …

Stratigraphic Reconstruction Of A Late Pleistocene Bald Cypress Forest Discovered On The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Continental Shelf, Suyapa Michell Gonzalez Rodriguez

LSU Master's Theses

A previously buried bald cypress forest (Taxodium distichum) was discovered on the continental shelf, offshore of Orange Beach, Alabama, USA, in ~20 m water depth. The forest was exhumed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and is now exposed as stumps in life position in a trough located in the northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf seafloor. We are investigating the local stratigraphy, paleo-landscape, and mode of forest preservation of this unique site. In August 2015 and July 2016, submersible vibracores (18 in total) were collected. Core analysis included: bulk density and imaging via Geotek multi sensor core logger, …

Participation And Representation: Does Risk Acceptance Influence The Decision Making Of Political Actors?, Joshua Daniel Hostetter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Are political actors influenced by their acceptance of risk? By political actors I mean individuals in society or government that have an influence on political outcomes. By risk acceptance I mean the degree to which an individual is comfortable with uncertainty and willing to challenge the status quo. The purpose of the present dissertation is to further enhance scholarly understanding of the causal psychological mechanisms that influence political behavior by considering individual risk acceptance.

Kam’s (2012) theoretical framework suggests that risk-accepting individuals are more likely to participate in politics because they seek out exciting and novel activities. She does …

Investigating Uranium Incorporation In Modern Carbonates By Sequential Extraction: Applied To The Permian - Triassic Boundary In Lung Cam, Vietnam, Christopher Michael Wray

LSU Master's Theses

The Uranium (U) isotopic system can be used to model the extent of global-scale ocean anoxia by utilizing the 238U/235U ratios as a paleo-redox indicator (δ238U). While recent studies have shown promise with the use of this novel proxy, variability is seen in modern carbonate sediment samples suggesting that more work is needed in order to understand elemental U uptake during early marine diagenesis. This thesis utilizes a sequential extraction methodology in order to understand the distribution of authigenic U within carbonate sediments.

This thesis consists of four parts, (1) an evaluation and modification of a sequential extraction methodology for …

Characterizing Severe Weather Potential In Synoptically Weakly Forced Thunderstorm Environments, Paul W. Miller, Thomas L. Mote

Faculty Publications

Abstract. Weakly forced thunderstorms (WFTs), short-lived convection forming in synoptically quiescent regimes, are a contemporary forecasting challenge. The convective environments that support severe WFTs are often similar to those that yield only non-severe WFTs and, additionally, only a small proportion of individual WFTs will ultimately produce severe weather. The purpose of this study is to better characterize the relative severe weather potential in these settings as a function of the convective environment. Thirty-one near-storm convective parameters for > 200 000 WFTs in the Southeastern United States are calculated from a high-resolution numerical forecasting model, the Rapid Refresh (RAP). For each parameter, …

Quality Function Deployment Method And Its Application On Wearable Technology Product Development, Mir Salahuddin

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate consumers and product developer’s expectations of wearable technology products in the context of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) framework. The specific objectives were to: 1) Explore the quality features that consumers consider most important when purchasing wearable technology product. 2) Explore the technical features product developers consider most important in the development of wearable technology. 3) Identify the technical features that wearable technology product developers need to focus on to meet the customer requirements.

The Qualtrix online survey system was used to collect demographic, quantitative and essay length written responses from participants. …

Assessment Of Mercury Content In Louisiana's Freshwater Fish And Its Association To Se Concentrations, Alexander David Reyes-Avila

LSU Master's Theses

Ample evidence has demonstrated the neurotoxic properties of organic Hg to humans. However, recent studies have proposed the protective effects of Se against organic Hg detected in marine fish. Louisiana’s freshwater bodies are exploited by recreational anglers that enjoy fishing as recreational activity and food source. Thus, testing of Hg in Louisiana was resumed in 2017 to update the state advisories. However, before drawing conclusions based solely on organic Hg, it might be useful to see how much Se is present in freshwater fish. The main objective of this study was to determine the Se:Hg molar ratio in Louisiana’s freshwater …

Identification And Mitigation Of Narrow Spectral Artifacts That Degrade Searches For Persistent Gravitational Waves In The First Two Observing Runs Of Advanced Ligo, P. B. Covas, A. Effler, E. Goetz, P. M. Meyers, A. Neunzert, M. Oliver, B. L. Pearlstone, V. J. Roma, R. M.S. Schofield, V. B. Adya, P. Astone, S. Biscoveanu, T. A. Callister, N. Christensen, A. Colla, E. Coughlin, M. W. Coughlin, S. G. Crowder, S. E. Dwyer, H. B. Eggenstein, S. Hourihane, S. Kandhasamy, W. Liu, A. P. Lundgren, A. Matas, R. Mccarthy, J. Mciver, G. Mendell, R. Ormiston, C. Palomba, M. A. Papa, O. J. Piccinni, K. Rao

Faculty Publications

Searches are under way in Advanced LIGO and Virgo data for persistent gravitational waves from continuous sources, e.g. rapidly rotating galactic neutron stars, and stochastic sources, e.g. relic gravitational waves from the Big Bang or superposition of distant astrophysical events such as mergers of black holes or neutron stars. These searches can be degraded by the presence of narrow spectral artifacts (lines) due to instrumental or environmental disturbances. We describe a variety of methods used for finding, identifying and mitigating these artifacts, illustrated with particular examples. Results are provided in the form of lists of line artifacts that can safely …

Two-Billion-Year-Old Evaporites Capture Earth's Great Oxidation, C. L. Blättler, M. W. Claire, A. R. Prave, K. Kirsimäe, J. A. Higgins, P. V. Medvedev, A. E. Romashkin, D. V. Rychanchik, A. L. Zerkle, K. Paiste, T. Kreitsmann, I. L. Millar, J. A. Hayles, H. Bao, A. V. Turchyn, M. R. Warke, A. Lepland

Faculty Publications

© 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved. Major changes in atmospheric and ocean chemistry occurred in the Paleoproterozoic era (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago). Increasing oxidation dramatically changed Earth's surface, but few quantitative constraints exist on this important transition. This study describes the sedimentology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of a 2-billion-year-old, ∼800-meterthick evaporite succession from the Onega Basin in Russian Karelia. The deposit consists of a basal unit dominated by halite (∼100 meters) followed by units dominated by anhydrite-magnesite (∼500 meters) and dolomite-magnesite (∼200 meters). The evaporite minerals robustly constrain marine sulfate concentrations to at least 10 millimoles per kilogram …

Two-Billion-Year-Old Evaporites Capture Earth's Great Oxidation, C. L. Blättler, M. W. Claire, A. R. Prave, K. Kirsimäe, J. A. Higgins, P. V. Medvedev, A. E. Romashkin, D. V. Rychanchik, A. L. Zerkle, K. Paiste, T. Kreitsmann, I. L. Millar, J. A. Hayles, H. Bao, A. V. Turchyn, M. R. Warke, A. Lepland

Faculty Publications

© 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved. Major changes in atmospheric and ocean chemistry occurred in the Paleoproterozoic era (2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago). Increasing oxidation dramatically changed Earth's surface, but few quantitative constraints exist on this important transition. This study describes the sedimentology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of a 2-billion-year-old, ∼800-meterthick evaporite succession from the Onega Basin in Russian Karelia. The deposit consists of a basal unit dominated by halite (∼100 meters) followed by units dominated by anhydrite-magnesite (∼500 meters) and dolomite-magnesite (∼200 meters). The evaporite minerals robustly constrain marine sulfate concentrations to at least 10 millimoles per kilogram …

Does Beyoncé’S Lemonade Really Teach Us How To Turn Lemons Into Lemonade?: Exploring The Limits And Possibilities Through Black Feminism, Erica B. Edwards, Jennifer Esposito, Venus Evans-Winters

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

A Black Girl’S Song Misogynoir, Love, And Beyoncé’S Lemonade, Zeffie Gaines

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

This article examines Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade in the context of black feminist theory, misogynoir, and issues of black self-love. After a brief overview of the initial response to Beyoncé’s album, this essay explores the deeper, metaphorical implication of Lemonade. This essay demonstrates that while Lemonade is ostensibly about marital infidelity, the trope of unfaithfulness is used to make a more profound commentary on the ontological crisis around blackness and black womanhood in American culture. Through close readings of several important scenes and tracks in Lemonade, this essay demonstrates that this album constitutes a masterwork by Beyoncé and should be …

The Bad Bitch Barbie Craze And Beyoncé African American Women’S Bodies As Commodities In Hip-Hop Culture, Images, And Media, Crystal Lavoulle, Tisha Lewis Ellison

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

In this special issue of Taboo, the authors use Beyoncé’s album, Lemonade, to introduce the concept of the Bad Bitch Barbie, a term used to identify a woman who embraces her body while simultaneously using it as a commodity. Representing a Black body ideal in Lemonade, Beyoncé uses images of Black women’s bodies to express empowerment, boldness, and resilience as Black women struggle to live in a racist and sexist society. There has been recent interest in the ways Black women have been portrayed in current media and popular culture, and many individuals have taken the opportunity to honor Black …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Beyoncé’S “Freedom”: An Examination Of Black College Women’S Experiences At Predominately White Institutions, Robin Phelps-Ward, Courtney Allen, Jimmy L. Howard

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

In this article we discuss the illusions of freedom and the complicated relationship Black women have with institutions of higher education. We suggest Beyoncé’s performance of “Freedom” at the 2016 BET Awards metaphorically and symbolically underscores the experiences of Black women in college. Through a rhetorical analysis of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s BET Music Awards performance of “Freedom.” we explore how the venue, visual style, and lyrics symbolize the feelings of unity, frustration, resistance, resilience, struggle, and disposability embodied in the experiences of Black women enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States. Using Black feminist thought and intersectional …

How #Blackgirlmagic Cultivates Supreme Love To Heal And Save Souls That Can Heal And Save The World: An Introduction To Endarkened Feminist Epistemlogical And Ontological Evolutions Of Self Through A Critique Of Beyoncé’S Lemonade, Jeanine Staples

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

Editorial Introduction, Venus Evans-Winters, Jennifer Esposito

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

Inside Cover

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

From Colorism To Conjurings: Tracing The Dust In Beyoncé'S Lemonade, Cienna Davis

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Colorism creates relentless tension and pressure in the lives of Black women. Pop-star Beyoncé Gisele Knowles-Carter is an interesting case in the discussion of colorism because her career has expressed a rich intimacy to Southern Black culture and female empowerment while also playing into tropes of the mulatta “fancy girl,” whose relative proximity to whiteness adheres social value within mainstream culture. Finding aesthetic and thematic parallels between Beyoncé’s recent project Lemonade (2016) and Julie Dash’s cult-classic film Daughters of the Dust (1991) I draw a critical connection between Yellow Mary Peazant and Beyoncé, the prodigal child and the licentious “post-racial,” …

Distributed Iterative Graph Processing Using Nosql With Data Locality, Ayam Pokhrel

LSU Master's Theses

A tremendous amount of data is generated every day from a wide range of sources such as social networks, sensors, and application logs. Among them, graph data is one type that represents valuable relationships between various entities. Analytics of large graphs has become an essential part of business processes and scientific studies because it leads to deep and meaningful insights into the related domain based on the connections between various entities. However, the optimal processing of large-scale iterative graph computations is very challenging due to the issues like fault tolerance, high memory requirement, parallelization, and scalability. Most of the contemporary …

S18rs Sgcr No. 14 (Campus Life), John Green

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

To place a referendum before the Louisiana State University student body in the Fall 2018 election to urge and request the LSU Board of Supervisors to review and reapportion the Campus Life Support Fee

Towards Cosmological Dynamics From Loop Quantum Gravity, Bao Fei Li, Parampreet Singh, Anzhong Wang

Faculty Publications

We present a systematic study of the cosmological dynamics resulting from an effective Hamiltonian, recently derived in loop quantum gravity using Thiemann's regularization and earlier obtained in loop quantum cosmology (LQC) by keeping the Lorentzian term explicit in the Hamiltonian constraint. We show that quantum geometric effects result in higher than quadratic corrections in energy density in comparison to LQC, causing a nonsingular bounce. Dynamics can be described by the Hamilton or Friedmann-Raychaudhuri equations, but the map between the two descriptions is not one to one. A careful analysis resolves the tension on symmetric versus asymmetric bounce in this model, …

Requiem For Orchestra And Choir, Luciano Vaz Correa

LSU Master's Theses

Five Movements of a Requiem is a composition for orchestra, solo soprano, solo alto, solo tenor, solo bass and choir, and is approximately 20 minutes in length. To compose it, I’ve studied many different requiem masses from Renaissance polyphony to our days, works from Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Missa Pro Defunctis to Schnittke’s Requiem. In this study, I’ve tried to understand which techniques they used in their compositions, and how these techniques could be useful on helping me to express my own music. In Christian liturgy, Requiem masses are offered for the dead and the name is derived from the …

Characterizing Putative Algal Bicarbonate Transporters In S. Cerevisiae & E. Coli Systems Using Transgenic Vectors, James J. Mickler

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Responsive Partnership Strategies On The Satisfaction Of Co-Teaching Relationships In Early Childhood Classrooms, Caroline Lee Hulin

LSU Master's Theses

BACKGROUND: Lack of coordinated action between two adults in the classroom can lead to disjointed instruction for young children and teacher stress (Masterson, 2015; Nilsson, 2015). OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to measure the effects of a Responsive Partnership Strategies intervention (Masterson) on teacher satisfaction with their co-teaching relationship. METHODS: Teachers were observed within the context of their classroom and during weekly planning sessions to record Responsive Partnership Strategies. Following baseline observations, teachers completed the Teaching Models Identification (Appendix B), Relationship Satisfaction Questionnaire (Appendix C), and the Responsive Partnership Strategies Checklist (Appendix D). The Responsive Partnership …

Incremental Landscape At A Baton Rouge Oil Refinery: Temporal Framework For Phytoremediation In Louisiana Cancer Alley, Dahyung Yang

LSU Master's Theses

There is a rising need for clear guidance for phytoremediation applications in contaminated land, in anticipation of the severity of the pollution problem in the petrochemical industrial area. Results of a demographic survey of Louisiana neighborhoods adjacent to petrochemical plants indicated that both deep-rooted environmental issues and social inequity are an inherent part of many communities. This research simulated a temporal framework for incremental landscape at a Baton Rouge oil refinery and its surrounding neighborhood using phytoremediation principles with local plants and insects. Through this novel ecosystem, the site will become biodiverse, and community members will be able to explore …

Facilitative Capture Of As(V), Pb(Ii) And Methylene Blue From Aqueous Solutions With Mgo Hybrid Sponge-Like Carbonaceous Composite Derived From Sugarcane Leafy Trash, Ronghua Li, Wen Liang, Jim J. Wang, Lewis A. Gaston, Di Huang, Hui Huang, Shuang Lei, Mukesh Kumar Awasthi, Baoyue Zhou, Ran Xiao, Zengqiang Zhang

Faculty Publications

Enhancing the contaminant adsorption capacity is a key factor affecting utilization of carbon-based adsorbents in wastewater treatment and encouraging development of biomass thermo-disposal. In this study, a novel MgO hybrid sponge-like carbonaceous composite (HSC) derived from sugarcane leafy trash was prepared through an integrated adsorption-pyrolysis method. The resulted HSC composite was characterized and employed as adsorbent for the removal of negatively charged arsenate (As(V)), positively charged Pb(II), and the organic pollutant methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions in batch experiments. The effects of solution pH, contact time, initial concentration, temperature, and ionic strength on As(V), Pb(II) and MB adsorption were …